1285/The Tuxedo Caper

The Tuxedo Caper
Date of Scene:	22 April 2020
Location:	Robinson Park - Miagani Island
Synopsis:	Finished.
Cast of Characters:	Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne

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Bruce Wayne has posed:
Sometimes, there's just no staying ahead of the villains. One can plan for multiple contingencies, have fallbacks, options, even strategies for any occassion.

But once in a while the bad guy gets the drop, and then the best the heroes can do is rally, fight back, and if necessary-- improvise.

"BATMAN!" The words are screeched all over Gotham from dozens of television sets and radios, echoing around the cool spring evening. Some devices hijacked, some merely repeating the message they'd been threatened into broadcasting. A huge eye squints into the lens, partially obscured by a monocle, and then backs off to a full view of Oswald Cobblepot. "Or... whomever. GREETINGS!" he screeches, and cackles the laugh of the utterly deranged. Around him, trained penguins repeat the sound, trained to jitter and cheer their master. "Here we are, another day, another dollar," the Penguin croaks. "Or billion or so. The plan is simple, if I say so myself. The Robinson Park Resevoir has been turned into a lovely skating rink. Or open pen for my lovelies, if you like."

"Or prison, if you don't."

The camera snaps to a view of the park. "You know, Gotham really needs to understand how vulnerable they are. If it was this easy to kidnap two City Council members, the CEO of EnCon, a judge, and the Lieutenant Governor, how easy would it be to kidnap some homemaker? Some college kid? Is anyone really safe?" The view dials in on the kidnap victims, all wearing crude paper tuxedos, hands and wrists bound and gags on them. A gaggle of penguins surround them, all of which seem to have some kind of device strapped to their back.

"I'm going to be helping myself to the contents of the vault at Main Street Trust. You know. Where the police department stores the MONEY they STOLE from me!" he screeches. Arms flail and the camera goes flying.

"-damnit, stupid... hang on." The camera's righted awkwardly. "So here's the deal, Batadingalings. Interrupt my spree and I send a gaggle of Gotham's finest to drown in the lake. I trust I don't have to tell you how BAD that would look for you. Cheers, les enfants!"

The Penguin moves off-camera, then comes back into frame. "Oh yeah, obviously, there are explosives around the hostages. Just to really help sell the panic level to the general population," he adds. Penguin taps his umbrella handle to his top hat, then screeches a laugh and smacks the camera aside. It goes flying across the room, skittering. "Augh, boss, that's my cell phone," complains a thug off-screen; and then the recording ends.

Dick Grayson has posed:
Dick had spent the day working in the Bat Cave getting some maintenance work done when the video came in. After, he watched it, the eldest Robin sighed heavily before getting his kit getting ready to head out. The joy of dealing with the Penguin, it is never normal, and he always has to make it weird, but he stays on brand. Dick made sure his belt was well-stocked and his sticks charged before calling out over the comms, "Anyone going with me?" His voice shows a little irritation before getting the Nightbird ready to head out.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian had finished preparations for his suit, and its components. He was going for a test run, out on the rooftops of Gotham City.

  Clad with his new suit, and helmet disguising his face, he intercepts the broadcast from Cobblepot, and seems to steady himself for a bigger field test than he had thought of tonight.

  His cape unfurls, and grows rigid, allowing him to start gliding toward Miagani Island.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"<Cobblepot,>" Batman says, over the comms. Does he sound sour-voiced? "<I'm in Redhook. Dealing with human smugglers. Let me know if you can't handle it.>"

A subtle jab? Or does Batman know that Damian's on his way as backup?

Or does he just have that much faith in Nightwing?

There is indeed a caper afoot, it seems! The ice rink contains a neat detcord circle about thirty yards wide, and fifteen yards from the nearest safe mooring where a boat would dock during the summer months. Now, it sports two bored looking guards; one with a rifle on his back, the other casually leaning against it. Clearly they don't expect anyone to actually go after this location.

The paper-mache tuxedos are definitely contributing to some frostbite. They're moving very, very little, despite the cold; one person sneezes and the entire crowd inhales sharply. The penguins squawk, ruffle their feathers, and then settle again.

The hostages emit a near-silent sigh of relief.

Across town, Penguin's men are busily cutting into the bank vault's heavy doors. They're using a plasma torch, slicing through the heavy tool steel like butter. "Five more minutes, boss!" the operator yells. Flames reflect in his heavy visor.

"Four minutes too long!" Penguin squawks, and hops up and down in frustration. Like a child throwing a tantrum. "I want to be well on our way before the Bats start messing with our hostage plan!" He lifts a radio to his mouth. "All teams, report in!" he demands. One by one, the radio teams send up their callsigns and affirm all is clear. With four teams of three to four men spread around the area, Penguin's got a pretty handy squad of well-armed muscle. Most of them common street hoodlums, but one or two look former military and casually at their ease with the rifles in their hands.

Dick Grayson has posed:
Dick began hastily making his way towards Miagani Island in the Nightbird, though once he gets closer he gets the island, he calls out over coms, <<Also out here, but if the others are out here, we should be good,>> He frowns and parks, taking his time to sneak towards the penguins and hostages, using his binoculars to get a good look at the situation. <<Looks like it's heavily watched, thinking a distraction to pull them away could work, though dealing with the penguins is going to be an issue.>>

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian hadn't keyed into the Bat comms systems, the suit still had some things to get right.

  He had no delusions that Bruce had known Damian was working on something at Wayne Enterprises. You can't keep something that intensive from the big boss in his own house.

  Red X's suit was shiny and new, the brushed steel skull on the helmet was embellished by his namesake red X, which glowed slightly.

  Damian finds a place to land, close to Nightwing, and allowed himself to communicate with the elder. Through modulation, of course. "I will take the penguins."

Bruce Wayne has posed:
The hostage situation is a little more complex than it appears at first glance. The guards aren't really the threat. They're likely only there to report the goings-on to Cobblepot, who is blocks away and in the middle of his massive bank heist.

The penguins have pet perimeter collars around their backs; notionally used to keep dogs from straying off property. On closer inspection, the reciever is wired to the detcord perimeter. The collars keep the penguins from just wandering in any old direction, but if someone were to startle or scare them, they'd go running for safe harbor.

And the reason for the tissue-paper tuxedos becomes clear to the two Batlings a moment later: underneath are heavy weighted vests used for weight training. If the penguins are startled, or anyone just ... sets off the detcord, a fifteen-yard wide section of ice will collapse under the hostages and send them into the icy depths of the resevoir below!

Dick Grayson has posed:
Nightwing looks to Damian, "Sounds good. Careful with those weighted vests, they are already weak as it is." He frowns and looks to the penguins and the guards, "Very well, I'll try and deal with the guards, just keep your head down and keep them from getting excited." With that, Nightwing loops around and tries to get behind the nearest couple of goons on lookout duty. With a couple deft strikes and zaps from his escrima sticks, the two find themselves taking an unexpected nap on the job.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Red X disappears before Grayson takes off, activating the suit's stealth mode. Allowing him to approach the rink without disturbing the penguins. The helmet feeds him information on the detcord. The boy traces the cord back to its origin.

  As soon as he is out of their field of view, he turns off the stealth mode to continue to trace the cord to its origin.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
Nightwing handles the two goons with an ease that's a credit to his long years of hard practice; they go down without much protest at all. Cobblepot clearly doesn't skimp on hired muscle, but these two were longer in brawn than brains. The idea that Nightwing would attack them head on clearly didn't enter into the equation. They were just lookouts, darnit!

"<...Station Lake! What is your status?>" Cobblepott's voice can be heard clearly on the radio attached to a belt. "<Will you stop screwing around? It's the RED button, dunderhead!>" he snaps.

The ignition for the detcord runs under the pier where Nightwing and the two unconscious goons are; a secondary ignition wire leads up to a remote-activated detonator, presumably so the guards can activate it manually if they so choose. There's nothing terribly complex about the relatively simple detonator setup. It'll take just a minute or two to trace the circuits and defuse the igniter safely, without triggering the explosives...

... Then again, if there's a remote detonator, why do neither of the guards have the device on their person?

"<Station Lake, COME IN or you're FIRED!>"

Dick Grayson has posed:
Nightwing hears the satisfying thump of goons hitting the floor and sighs in relief. He begins rifling through their pockets for any clues on anything, but is quickly distracted by the sound of Cobblepot coming over the radio. He tries to wave the radio in Damian's direction to get his attention regarding it, and then begins coughing as he talks into it, feigning congestion, while trying to mimic the goons' voices he heard in the original video "Sorry, boss, got a bit of a cold setting in. All's clear over here."

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Tracing the detcord back to the igniter, Damian keeps up under the pier. As he reaches the igniter, he grabs his grapple, and shoots off a peton, clipping the gun to his belt, and allowing it to lift him to get to the spot.

  His helmet works much like Batman's cowl would, or a Robin's mask. Tracing the hot line to a source safe enough to clip without tripping the detcord.

  A set of clippers is removed from his belt, and with a hushed deep breath, he squeezes the clippers. *SNIP*

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"<Well, keep a lookout, you oaf! I don't pay you to stand around and blow your nose in your sleeve!"> The radio cuts off.

Thankfully, Damian's expertise with explosives pays off; the detonators are disabled! The penguins seem ambivalent about the whole affair, but the civilians being held hostage start to stir with excitement when they realize the vigilantes are there to help them.

"Oh my god, we're saved!" one of them finally says.

"Is that Nightwing?"

"It's gotta be!"

"Who's the other guy?"

Excited babble starts to churn from the group; finally, one of them raises their voice to be heard by the caped duo. "Can we get off the ice now?" he pleads, in fear. "We're freezing to death out here and we'd really like to get away from the explosives!"

Dick Grayson has posed:
Nighting sighs in relief that the ruse worked. He is more excited about the relief from the hostages. "All right," he mutters under his breath and approaches, beginning to untie the hostages and saying, "Be careful, don't rush yourselves, last thing you need is to slip and hurt yourself."

Damian Wayne has posed:
     No boom, and Damian can breathe easy.

  He lowers himself from the pier, and joins topside. As the penguins hadn't set off the detcord, the hostages were free to get off the ice.

  Red X makes a jump to get on, and begins to approach the hostages. A blade was taken out from his belt, and he starts to take off those weight vests and any bindings they were in. "Step gently, and with your whole foot." He comments, leading the free hostages away from the ice.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
Penguins squawk and scrabble away as the hostages are led off the ice, leaving behind only the vests and the tattered paper tuxedos. A cruel prank by the Penguin-- putting everyone in Penguin suits.

Get it?

Once the last of the hostages are on the shoreline, the Batlings can breath easy for a moment. Emergency services aren't far off to help treat hypothermia and check for other injuries.

"<Station Lake! Close up and head to the rendezvous point, we're all done here! Leave the hostages for the birds! Nyahahahhaa!>" he chortles, over the radio.

A fast and risky drive across Gotham might get the duo to the bank-- too late to stop the heist, but possibly on-time to at least capture Cobblepot in the act?

Dick Grayson has posed:
Once the hostages are clear, Nightwing calls out to his colleague and says, "Hey, Red, want a lift?" He pokes his thumb towards where the car is parked, "He's expecting company, so we may as well oblige him." He grins and makes his way to the car and fires it up.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     The helmet looks at Nightwing as he asks the question. Looking at him with a plain expression, he begins to make his way to the car. "Do not get any ideas, Nightwing. I already am building my own motorcycle." He says, the modulation making him sound less the boy, and more the symbol.

  Once he's in the car, he starts to tinker a bit on one of his gauntlets, a holo display appearing in a red palette above his forearm. Just what he was doing was becoming apparent while they were on their way. He was forcing the car to give the details on frequency and security of the bat comms. A piece of their tech was all he needed to tap into it. Something Damian didn't have as he was still staying away from the Bat and the rest of the family. "You drive like an old lady." He comments, a chortle of his own from behind his helmet.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
The two are off like a shot, breaking every traffic rule and flying along with a surety only years of intimate knowledge of Gotham's streets can provide. Fortunately, it's late enough that there's little traffic, and the various computer systems give them green lights all the way to the bank. A twenty-minute cross-town trip takes less than four, total.

When they get to the intersection of the bank's entrance, however, it's utter bedlam. Vehicles on fire block one route in; a parked semi-truck obstructs another. The escape route's left open by dint of a heavy bulldozer, which was used to knock in the sidewall of the building.

From their obstructed vantage point, Nightwing and Red X can clearly see the driver of the bulldozer parking it to block off pursuit and hopping in the back of a rented cargo van. It only takes a few moments for them to redirect and get around the obstructions, and that's when they realize Cobblepott's playing it smarter than usual:

There are -three- vans trundling away, and all going in different directions. A classic shell game!

Dick Grayson has posed:
Nightwing laughs, "Well, say what you want, but we're getting there, and a bit quicker than you think." He keeps driving and sees the three different vans, "Well, we have to pick one, unless you want to hop out here in a second and pursue another, I'd say shoot for the middle one and hope for the best."

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian looks back to Nightwing. "Sixty percent coverage opposed to thirty is better odds."

  Guess than answers the question. The boy slips through the window, and stands atop the roof of the car. Before the three move off to different paths, he shoots off his grapple, and follows the rightmost van. Riding the air with his cape, and using the grapple to zip him along faster when needed, gaining as much ground as he can before making a dive to land on the van.